Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, described Saturday's international talks on his country's nuclear programme as a "step forward" yesterday, although western officials said the negotiations ended in deadlock.

Ahmadinejad told Iranian state radio that his government's official response would be announced soon.

His remarks offered a glimmer of hope after talks in Geneva ended with no sign of a resolution of the nuclear standoff between Iran and the UN security council, despite the direct participation for the first time of a senior US official.

Iran has repeatedly rejected security council demands for it to suspend uranium enrichment, despite three waves of UN sanctions. On Saturday, a six-nation team led by the EU foreign policy chief, Javier Solana, flew to Geneva to hear Iran's response to an interim proposal: for Iran to stop the expansion of its enrichment programme in return for a moratorium on added sanctions.

In response, Iranian delegate, Saeed Jalili, presented a paper at the meeting that outlined a three-stage process. According to the Iranian document, the first stage would involve three meetings to talk about "modalities" for further talks. In the second phase, there would be a freeze on sanctions but Iran would only have to cooperate with the International Atomic Energy Agency, something Iran already claims to be doing. In the third phase, all sanctions would be dropped and Iran would "implement the agreed action", but the action was not specified.

"There's nothing in it to be honest," a western participant at the talks said. "What they appear to want to do is spin out the first phase, which Solana told them we have been in for at least the past three years."

Solana gave Jalili two weeks to consult Tehran and get back to him, and told journalists that it had been made clear to the Iranian government "today and every day" that it faced further international sanctions if it did not agree to the plan.

"Iran's strategic options are rapidly foreclosing," a European source at the talks said. Some officials from the Solana team still held out hope that Jalili might return to Tehran and convince the Iran's supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that the international community remained united in its determination to force the suspension of uranium enrichment, and force a change of heart.

"If the plan was to string this along, they would have got the message that's not going to work," a western official said. "To be honest I'm not optimistic. Although maybe they are waiting for a change of administration in Washington before they signal some kind of flexibility."